The Prison Lesbian: Race, Class, and the Construction of the Aggressive Female Homosexual, 1915-1965

Freedman, Estelle B.

doi:10.2307/3178421

Cited by 58 publications

(38 citation statements)

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“…A collective social identity, by contrast, was something more intrinsic to the self, and thus something that carried over into all spheres of an individual's life-including life within organizations. The new consensus on the relative fixity of sexual orientation was seen as a prerequisite (rightly or wrongly) for claiming civil rights for sexual minorities and is evident in the near-complete absence of studies within the collective identity framework on "situational" homosexuality associated with certain sex-segregated organizations, such as prisons, the armed services, and boarding schools (Freedman, 1996;Kunzel, 2002). Consensus on the uniformity of sexual categories was equally broad.…”

Section: A Central Problem Of Rights and Equalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

The shifting landscape of LGBT organizational research

Anteby

Anderson

2014

Research in Organizational Behavior

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Section: A Central Problem Of Rights and Equalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

The shifting landscape of LGBT organizational research

Anteby

Anderson

2014

Research in Organizational Behavior

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“…In women's prisons, however, sexuality is significant. Since the early 20th century and up to the present day, sexual and romantic relation-ships between women prisoners have been a preoccupying theme for researchers (inter alia, Einat & Chen, 2012;Freedman, 1996;Giallombardo, 1966;Howe, 1994;Otis, 1913;Severance, 2008;Ward & Kassebaum, 1965), and gay and bisexual-identified women represent a significant minority of prison officers. The lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) staff group is active and visible.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Situating the Self in Prison Research: Power, Identity and Epistemology

Rowe¹

2015

The Palgrave Handbook of Prison Ethnography

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Despite the central importance of ethnographic methods to sociological understandings of imprisonment, ethnographies of prison life have tended to evade ideas of "connectedness" between researcher and participant. This arguably underplays the epistemological possibilities of the unique characteristic of participant observation: the presence of the embodied, subjectively perceiving researcher in the field. Using data from English women's prisons, this article argues that attending to the (inter)subjective dimensions of ethnographic research can bring gains in sociological understanding. The analysis considers moments of disruption in field research, exploring themes of emotion, identity, and power. It focuses particularly on experiences of being positioned and misplaced by prisoners and prison staff, and of negotiating a researcher identity as a gay woman in a field in which sexuality is a pervasive theme. It is suggested that making the self visible in the text offers both substantive insights and a response to some of the dilemmas generated by even marginal participation in a complex field like a prison.

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“…In addition, they now sometimes married other women while dressed as men (Freedman, 1996). By the end of the century, some single working-class women pooled resources and lived as couples in urban, furnished-room districts (Freedman, 1996). Social workers were impacted by these changes.…”

Section: The Progressive Eramentioning

confidence: 99%

“…During World War II, women's work force and military participation intensified a process of homosexual community formation (Freedman, 1996). Upon returning from the war, many men and women did not return to their hometowns, but rather, went to large urban areas where gay and lesbian communities were forming (Miller, 1995).…”

Section: World War IImentioning

confidence: 99%

“…During the nineteenth century and before, individual working class women passed as men by dressing and acting like them for a variety of economic, sexual, and adventure-seeking reasons (Freedman, 1996;Newton, 1984;San Francisco Lesbian and Gay History Project, 1983). In addition, they now sometimes married other women while dressed as men (Freedman, 1996). By the end of the century, some single working-class women pooled resources and lived as couples in urban, furnished-room districts (Freedman, 1996).…”

Section: The Progressive Eramentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Queer Liberation Movement? A Qualitative Content Analysis of Queer Liberation Organizations, Investigating Whether They are Building a Separate Social Movement

DeFilippis

2000

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In the last forty years, U.S. national and statewide LGBT organizations, in pursuit of "equality" through a limited and focused agenda, have made remarkably swift progress moving that agenda forward. However, their agenda has been frequently criticized as prioritizing the interests of White, middle-class gay men and lesbians and ignoring the needs of other LGBT people. In their shadows have emerged numerous grassroots organizations led by queer people of color, transgender people, and low-income LGBT people. These "queer liberation" groups have often been viewed as the left wing of the GRM, but have not been extensively studied. My research investigated how these grassroots liberation organizations can be understood in relation to the equality movement, and whether they actually comprise a separate movement operating alongside, but in tension with, the mainstream gay rights movement.This research used a qualitative content analysis, grounded in black feminism's framework of intersectionality, queer theory, and social movement theories, to examine eight queer liberation organizations. Data streams included interviews with staff at each organization, organizational videos from each group, and the organizations' mission statements. The study used deductive content analysis, informed by a predetermined categorization matrix drawn from social movement theories, and also featured inductive analysis to expand those categories throughout the analysis. This study's findings indicate that a new social movement -distinct from the mainstream equality organizations -does exist. Using criteria informed by leading social movement theories, findings demonstrate that these organizations cannot be understood ii as part of the mainstream equality movement but must be considered a separate social movement. This "queer liberation movement" has constituents, goals, strategies, and structures that differ sharply from the mainstream equality organizations. This new movement prioritizes queer people in multiple subordinated identity categories, is concerned with rebuilding institutions and structures, rather than with achieving access to them, and is grounded more in "liberation" or "justice" frameworks than "equality." This new movement does not share the equality organizations' priorities (e.g., marriage) and, instead, pursues a different agenda, include challenging the criminal justice and immigration systems, and strengthening the social safety net.Additionally, the study found that this new movement complicates existing social movement theory. For decades, social movement scholars have documented how the redistributive agenda of the early 20th century class-based social movements has been replaced by the demands for access and recognition put forward by the identity-based movements of the 1960s New Left. While the mainstream equality movement can clearly be characterized as an identity-based social movement, the same is not true of the groups in this study. This queer liberation movement, although centered on identity claim...

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The Prison Lesbian: Race, Class, and the Construction of the Aggressive Female Homosexual, 1915-1965

Cited by 58 publications

References 0 publications

The shifting landscape of LGBT organizational research

The shifting landscape of LGBT organizational research

Situating the Self in Prison Research: Power, Identity and Epistemology

A Queer Liberation Movement? A Qualitative Content Analysis of Queer Liberation Organizations, Investigating Whether They are Building a Separate Social Movement

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